by Ann Swinfen
On the last day of that week, Jack declared that he would make his way over to Crowthorne, to see how that village had fared. We were not on very good terms with the people of Crowthorne, but in the face of such a disaster as this flood, even our old enmities might be set aside for a time.
Jack must cross the delph at the bottom of the street, and possibly others on his way, but like all fenlanders he was accustomed to vaulting over waterways, and carried his leaping pole with him. When he returned late in the afternoon, he brought us their news.
‘Like us they managed to stop the drainers’ pump on their land,’ he said. ‘Truly, I think if we had not both disabled the pumps, the flood would have risen over the church and drowned us all. They think they may be able to get through to the Roman road in a week or so. After that, we may be able to reach Peterborough for supplies of food, but it also means others can reach us.’
‘Do you mean the drainers?’ Tom asked. ‘There will be the devil to pay when they find we have interfered with their pumping mills.’
Jack shrugged. ‘They will be back, you may be sure of it.’
‘Somehow we must make them understand that by drawing the water out of the Fen, instead of letting it soak up the winter rains, they have caused this flood,’ Gideon said reasonably.
Hans was looking uncomfortable during this conversation, which was taking place, as before, amongst a small group of us in the vestry.
‘The drainers,’ he said apologetically, ‘they do what they are told. Piet van Slyke is well known at home. He has drained polders from the sea. But it is different with us.’
Once again, his English failed him, and he turned to Griet.
‘We build dykes,’ she explained. ‘Like a wall between the sea and the marshland to be drained. Then the pumping mills take the water from the marsh and put it in the sea. When the land is drained, we can farm it.’
‘But you can see how different that is from the Fens,’ Tom said, with an edge of anger to his voice. Had it not been for the drainage works, he would not have lost his leg. Our farmhand Nehemiah Socket had made him a replacement for the lost crutch, so that he was now able to swing himself about in the church. Grimly every day he worked his way up and down the nave, trying to strengthen the muscles of his shoulders and arms, so that he could move more easily.
‘We are only flooded from the sea occasionally, when there are bad storms and very high tides,’ he said. ‘Even so, that does not affect us much here, but along the coast. Sometimes the river may back up and spread out near the estuary, but we’re not troubled by it. Our floods come from the winter rains which are a benefit to us, enriching our fields with soil from the higher ground inland. During those winter months we expect certain of our fields – like the one you built on – to be covered with a shallow flood for a few weeks. Afterwards the marshland of the Fen slowly absorbs the extra water. By watching the natural floods over the years, our ancestors dug ditches and channels like Baker’s Lode to carry away excess water to the river.’
‘But you can only dig these ditches where you know they will do good,’ Jack interrupted. ‘What you do not do is try to take water out of the bog. It works like, like . . .’ He shrugged.
‘Like a sponge,’ I said. ‘And that also keeps the peat from drying out. Further south, where they brought in drainage in our grandfather’s time, the peat has turned to dust, no use to anyone.’
‘And where the wetlands have vanished there,’ Jack said, ‘the fish and the eels have gone, the waterfowl vanished. Reeds and osiers no longer grow, which we use for thatching and baskets and hurdles and eel traps – when we have any eels.’
Their voices had grown strident, so that Hans and Griet looked more and more unhappy. Gideon laid a restraining hand on Jack’s arm.
‘You can understand now why the work of the drainers is such a disaster for us,’ he said. ‘Our traditional ways of farming and fishing and wild fowling will be destroyed for ever if these schemes go ahead. And at the same time they would take possession of our common lands where we graze our beasts and grow our crops. Our people will be made destitute.’
Griet nodded. ‘But Mercy told me that you have a charter which proves in law that the land belongs to you.’
‘If we had it,’ Tom said grimly, ‘there would be no problem. Or rather,’ he corrected himself, ‘we would be one step nearer to proving possession of our common lands. We would still need to fight the company of speculators in the courts. They are rich and we are poor. However, we do not know where the charter is. It is nearly a year since the local squire, Sir John Dillingworth, set his London lawyer to secure the charter and prove our claim in court, but nothing has been heard from him.’
‘If indeed Sir John ever instructed him.’ Jack’s voice was scornful. ‘Which is doubtful.’
‘It shall be my first task,’ Tom said, ‘when I get to London. To search out Sir John’s lawyer and discover whether he has been able to trace the charter.’
‘You are still determined to go back to Gray’s Inn?’ Gideon asked.
‘I am. I can do no good here. I will take up my studies in the law, so that I may have a profession even a one-legged man can practise.’ His tone was bitter, but who could blame him? ‘Sir John’s man is at Lincoln’s Inn, but it should not be difficult to track him down. As soon as a carrier is able to get through to the London road, I shall be on my way. You may be sure I will not let a moment go past but I will search out the charter.’
To tell the truth, I was reluctant for Tom to go. I feared that the difficulties he must confront in London, with no one to help him get about, might prove too much even for his indomitable spirit. And for selfish reasons of my own, I would have been glad of him here on the farm. He could no longer carry out the physical tasks of farming, but he had undertaken much of the management ever since he had abandoned his studies and returned home to help our father. I had done a good deal of late, but Tom had always been there with his advice and knowledge. In future I would have to cope without that.
Sooner than expected, a carrier did manage to reach us, the very day after the men of the village had rebuilt the wooden bridge over the delph, on the road leading to Crowthorne. He brought with him a passenger from Lincoln – Will’s cousin, Abel Forrester, the gaoler who had helped me when I was tried for witchcraft. Having left his position at Lincoln castle in disgust, he was returning to his original trade as blacksmith, coming to work as partner to Will.
Abel brought with him news from the outside world, though it held little as dramatic as our own affairs. The king was a prisoner, his army scattered. It seemed the war was at an end, yet the soldiers billeted in the village had not received any order to disperse. As they had not been paid for months, most of them were not minded to leave until that happy day arrived.
The carrier stayed overnight at the yel-hus, and when he left in the morning, Tom would go with him.
‘He goes as far as Peterborough.’ Tom was sitting with Gideon and me at the back of the church. ‘I shall easily find a carrier in Peterborough to convey me to London.’
‘Have a care,’ I said. I did not want to cluck over him like an old wife, but it was a fearful journey for a one-legged man, with little prospect at the end of it. ‘Promise that you will write as soon as you find lodgings and have enrolled again in Gray’s Inn.’
‘I shall see if any of the fellows I knew are still there. I might be able to share lodgings with them.’
‘A good plan,’ Gideon said. ‘You will be close at hand for – what do they call them? – moots and readings?’
‘Aye, if the teaching carries on as before. In the early days of the war, everything fell apart.’
I brought out of my pocket a small purse, which clinked as I laid it on the seat of the pew next to Tom.
‘You remember when Gideon went to Lynn, to take ship for the Low Countries, he left all the money he possessed with me. Most is still unused. We want you to have it.’
He shook his head.
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‘I cannot take it and leave you penniless.’
Gideon laid his hand on Tom’s arm. ‘Mercy and I have agreed this. We have kept back a little, in case we need to buy food in the lean months of spring. This should be enough for you to have a wooden leg made, and to keep you until you can find work.’
It was Tom’s plan to try for work as a clerk or a tutor while he took up his studies once more. With his university degree and a year’s training in the law, we hoped it would not be too difficult. As for the artificial limb, he had been assured by Jack (who had been to sea, where such injuries were not unknown) that a wooden leg would improve his balance and enable him to get about with just one crutch.
At last he agreed to take the money, but swore he would pay it back as soon as he was earning. The next morning, before he heaved himself into the carrier’s cart, he hugged me and kissed my cheek.
‘I am only sorry that I shall not be here to see you wed, Mercy, but I shall think of you. Send me word, once you are Mistress Clarke.’
I nodded, finding it difficult to speak. A year ago we had been a family. Now my father was dead, my mother lost in confusion, and my brother setting off on a long and difficult journey.
As the cart trundled away down toward the bridge, I stood watching until it vanished from sight.
Tom was gone, but I must not give way to grieving. I had other work to do. The lane to our farm was passable now. Within the next few days, I was determined that I would ride to Turbary Holm and confront the damage to the farm that was now mine.
Chapter Two
Tom
The carter Edy was travelling as far as Peterborough, which we reached before nightfall that first day. Although I had coin enough for a bed in the purse Mercy had given me, I was mindful of how much I might need it once I reached London, so I asked Edy whether I might sleep in his cart. He himself had taken a shared bed for the night, but he was willing enough for me to use the cart, as I might also keep a watch on his horse, for not every ostler is an honest man. We took a pot of ale and a mutton chop together in the low-ceilinged common room of the inn, then I went off to the stable for the night.
I was glad no one was there to see my struggles in getting myself back up into the cart. Gideon had given me a heave up when we left the village, and it had not been difficult to lower myself to the ground when we reached the inn, but lifting myself back up into the cart was almost more than I could manage. At last I lay on the floor of the cart, sweating with effort and pain despite the icy wind whistling through the gaps in the stable walls.
For a long while I lay there, reflecting on my rashness in setting off for London alone and maimed as I was. More alone, indeed, than ever in my life and sobered by my struggle, I felt for the first time that I might fail in my attempt to take up my studies and to find the charter. Or worse. Who knew what London would hold, after these years of war? Mercy had often chided me for acting without thinking. I believed I had reflected carefully before undertaking this journey, but I was forced to confess that I was more disabled than I had allowed myself to admit until now. At home on the farm, and during our weeks in the church, there had always been someone at hand to ease my difficulties. From now on I must depend on no one but myself.
The cart contained a load of Jack’s fleeces which had escaped the flood waters. They were bound for a dealer in Northampton, so the carter and I would part company in the morning. Tonight, however, they would provide me with a reasonable bed. When I had regained my breath, I rearranged them into a kind of nest and unrolled one to serve as a blanket. The familiar smell of untreated wool was comforting in the cold darkness of the stable, but my newly confronted anxiety about what lay ahead kept me awake and unsettled far into the night.
In the morning, I shook Edy’s hand and offered to pay him for carrying me as far as Peterborough, but he refused my money.
‘Nay,’ he said. ‘You have had troubles enough. I wish you well in London, Master Bennington.’
He gave me a look of half-ashamed pity, which I endured with a forced smile, and we said our farewells.
‘There is a regular carrier service to London,’ he said as we parted. ‘Go to the market place and ask for Joseph Thompson. Say that I sent you.’ Then he climbed into his cart with ease, clicked his tongue to the horse and was gone.
I found Joseph Thompson without much difficulty and learned that I was in luck.
‘I leave in half an hour by the church clock,’ he said, pointing, ‘if you can be ready by then.’ He was looking at my crutches and the empty leg of my breeches.
‘I am ready now,’ I said, ‘but I’d be glad of your help in getting up on to your cart.’
After my trouble the previous night I had realised that I must humble myself to ask for help. Joseph, like others before him, was fearful of hurting me, but I reassured him, and with his assistance I was soon sitting next to him on the driver’s bench. The previous day I had ridden in the body of the cart, but this was a much larger vehicle, with a solid bench for the driver, partially protected from the weather by a projection forward from the roof of the cart and a plank for shelter on each side. The smaller cart had been roofed with nothing more than a hooped canvas, while this one was like a solid wooden shed on wheels, drawn by two horses.
The journey to London took us three days, for Joseph made deliveries on the way and collected other goods for transport onwards. Each night I slept in the cart to save my money, and although it was more weatherproof I was less comfortable than on the first night. There were no fleeces to make a bed. Mostly Joseph carried barrels and crates, though I also shared the accommodation with a flitch of bacon, three hens in a wicker cage, and – on the last night – a strong smelling billy goat.
By dusk on the third day we were within sight of London, on the high ground of the heath land that lies to the north of the city, but Joseph would not travel the last few miles in the gathering dark.
‘Too chancy,’ he said. ‘This has ever been a haunt of rogues who prey on travellers, and since the fighting began, with so many masterless men and deserters from the army, no one but a fool would cross the heath at night. We’ll stop at an inn I know and reach London by daylight tomorrow. You must know your inns as well, for some of the innkeepers are in league with the bands of robbers. This man is honest.’
So I spent that last night in the goat’s company, aware that when I arrived in London I would probably carry his pungent aroma with me, no very welcome scent when I was trying to persuade Gray’s Inn to readmit me as a student. In the morning I was dirty and crumpled, and very stiff from the last three uncomfortable nights. I wished I had some friend in whose lodgings I could make myself more presentable, but I knew of no one. If any of my former fellow students were still in London, they might not be easy to find. For all that I knew, some might have joined the army on one side or the other. Some might even have died in battle.
We reached the city wall at Aldersgate, where I asked Joseph to set me down, for it was the nearest he would come to the Inns of Court. I could think of nowhere to go, save directly to Gray’s Inn, though it would be hard walking so far on crutches. He offered to drive me there, but I could see he was reluctant, being urgent to dispose of his goods. Like Edy, he refused payment.
‘Nay, Master Bennington,’ he said. ‘I have been glad of your company on the road. And if you should want carrying back to Peterborough at any time, you may find me at the Three Dolphins in Billingsgate. I make the journey at least once a week, except in foul weather.’
I thanked him, though I saw his kindness arose mostly from pity for a poor maimed fellow. It is a hard thing, to accept pity, when you have once been as strong as any other man, but beggars, as they say, cannot choose otherwise. I was not yet a beggar, but who knew? It might yet come to that. Once I had slipped down from the cart and balanced myself upon my crutches, he passed down to me my knapsack, saluted with his whip, and drove into the city through the gate. I slung my knapsack over my shoulder and turned away
, first along Little Britain and the south side of Smithfield Market, which echoed with the noise of the beasts, then along Holborn.
Never before I had ventured more than a dozen yards or so on my crutches with my knapsack on my shoulder, and I now discovered how difficult it was, for every few strides the knapsack would slide down my arm and entangle itself in one of my crutches. I tried shifting it from shoulder to shoulder. Nothing solved the problem. It was worst on my left side, the side of my amputated leg, for it was more likely to unbalance me, but I also needed my right side to be dependable, and the sliding knapsack unsteadied me there. I was constantly stopping to heave the wretched thing back on to my shoulder, while passers-by either hurried past, averting their eyes in embarrassment, or – like a gaggle of half grown apprentices – jeered openly, shouting abuse.
‘Hey, Master Hop-a-Leg! Let’s see you dance a jig!’
One of them picked up a clod of earth and heaved it at me, but his aim was poor and it fell to one side. In the past, I would have laid into the fellow with my fists, but what could I do now, teetering on my crutches, against six youths? They were poor, pale-faced, pimply fellows, not like our strong country lads, but all I could do was set my jaw and hobble on. They followed me for a while, but soon grew bored and ran off.
After two more tangles with my knapsack, I pulled it off my shoulder in disgust and hung it round my neck, where it bumped against my chest. I felt a fool, but at least I was able to get along more easily.
When at last I found time to look about me, I thought London seemed dirty and shabby. I had not thought it so when I had first come here, fresh from my studies at Cambridge. I had been full of hope then, confident that I would qualify as a lawyer and begin the life of a gentleman, perhaps with a post in the service of government. There had been talk in Cambridge of the growing tension between Parliament and the King, but I had paid little attention to it, for it seemed unreal amongst our bookish days and our evenings in the town’s taverns. Coming to London, I had thought it a city of promise, where I would break out of my chrysalis as a country yeoman’s son and rise to great heights.